#((succeeded with... acceptable coherency!))

[aceofwands]

idk man I just think of all the franchises you could try to make the Next Big Thing by creating a bunch of new shows and movies, maybe don't pick the one with the notoriously nitpicky obsessed with canon fandom ?? if you don't plan on applying any sort of consistency to the world, characters, alien cultures, entire ethical and moral framework of the universe, etc etc ????

[withahappyrefrain]

wanna give bob sloppy head that has hum questioning his entire existence

Look, It's what he deserves

"Please Bobby?" He wanted to take you out on a lovely picnic date in a nice secluded spot. Bob was trying to be romantic.

What he didn't account for was that you would be ovulating at the time.

"Darlin, it's alright. I can wait until we get back in the car," He tries to assure you. Tries not to jerk his hips when your lips trace over the denim covered bulge, "You don't have to-"

"But I want to," your chin is laying on top of his poorly hidden erection. With those doe eyes, you look so innocent, despite your intentions being the exact opposite.

Bob Floyd has pretty good restraint. Except when it comes to you.

Which is how he finds himself on his back, the soft fabric of the picnic blanket providing comfort, the sun shining down on a beautiful spring day. Not that he could focus on the picturesque view of nature.

No. Bob's eyes could only focus on you and the way your mouth worked his cock. What you couldn't reach, your hand was covered, stroking in tendam.

Then there were the noises. God, the noises you make. Little moans and grunts that dribble from the corner of your mouth.

Bob had always known he enjoyed giving. Going down on his partner was a pleasure. A chance to make them come completely undone. His past relationships had thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of him, but it was never truly reciprocated to the same degree. It didn’t bother Bob, not greatly. For one, he was big. Going down on him required acceptance of a sore jaw. The other was that he truly enjoyed it, truly got off on getting his partner off. Don’t ask him to count how many times he came while in between a pair of legs, the number was embarrassingly high.

Yes, a blowjob was nice every now and then. But it wasn’t something Bob expected. He came to accept it would be a nice, albeit rare, treat.

Until he met you.

Size wasn’t a deterrence. The man made you see stars with just his tongue. In your mind, it only made sense to return the favor. Getting adjusted to the sheer size of Bob Floyd took some time, but you were certainly up to the task.

Besides, it was so fun to watch the usually well composed and calm WSO come undone. If only his fellow pilots could see him now; perfectly gelled hair now curly due to tossing his head from side to side against the blanket. A flush of red that started from the top of his head and ran down to his chest. His rich baritone voice reduced to strangled groans and whines.

Smiling to yourself, your tongue trailed down his hard shaft, starving off his impending orgasm. Bob always took his time with you, so why not do the same?

“D-darlin, p-please.” Who could think of coherent sentences when your tongue was playing around with his aching balls? Christ, he didn’t even get why others were into that until he met you.

You hummed, playing innocent, “You want something Bobby?” His lithe hips spasmed as you increased the pace of your strokes.

“I….” If Bob wasn’t careful, he was going to ask you to marry him instead of asking to come, “Fuck!” A swear! From Bob Floyd! Always a feat.

“Later. When we’re in the car. First, I wanna feel you come down my throat,” was all you said before returning your mouth to his cock. Swallowing Bob Floyd whole was nearly impossible (despite what romance authors say), but you did your best, nose almost reaching the dark hair that dusted the area below his stomach.

Feeling your throat constrict and squeeze around him, Bob could only throw his head back to let out a deep, strangled groan that had him thankful for picking such a secluded spot. His hands fumbled towards your shoulders, gripping on for dear life as your sinful mouth continued its actions.

Bob tried to be considerate and most of the time he succeeded in that regard. His hips jerked upward entirely on their own and normally, he would apologize for it.

But then he felt your throat tightened, heard you gag on his cock and Bob lost all control. All he could focus on was your mouth and how good it felt around his cock. How were you even real? How was it possible he had you, a fucking goddess, on their hands and knees in a park, making him feel fucking incredible?

Perhaps he and Nat didn't eject that day and Bob had found his way to heaven, now coming down a beautiful angel's throat. That was definitely not mentioned in Sunday School.

You took all he had to offer, delighted in doing so. The way his hips squirm, unsure whether to jerk towards or away from your mouth. Digging your fingers into the flesh, you guided his hips towards your mouth, deadset on continuing until he verbally objected.

Least you could do for the guy who made you squirt for the first time.

[goldendivinewrath]

@full-of-mercy

Vash doesn't feel like he can breathe in that short eternity of stillness and eye contact and not being certain, his chest and his lungs feeling squeezed too tight to expand. Wondering, taking in signs and tells and still not being sure of what he's seeing, of what the result is going to be, what he might have to say in order to dismiss or explain or retreat--

That squeak, the one he inadvertently makes when he's moved seemingly without thought or effort -- moved closer and quickly and it's nothing that he could have predicted or found need or desire to argue against -- would be absolutely mortifying if he were of any mind to process the fact that he'd made that sound in the first place. It's distant background noise at best, along with every thought in his head; Vash can't entirely process the reality that he's been vehemently pulled in instead of pushed away.

He actually manages to process a whole lot less when the ticklish-warm-sharp-good touch ripples over his skin and immediately deeper, looking at the man beneath him, watching exactly what he's doing and still needing extra time for the physical sensation and the rest of his scattered mind to catch up to one another. Bright, bright blue-green-aqua-teal eyes, glowing ring slowly getting overcome by expanding black, peer down in a way that's almost predatory, breath shallow and fast.

The information given takes another moment or two for sinking in, to understand, and by then-- There aren't words in response. Language ceases to exist altogether in a guttural moan of anticipation, fully realizing intention. The sound only seems to be echoed by a resonance that is rapidly pulsing instead of remaining a steady vibration, matching his heartbeat and the as-of-yet barely present rocking of his hips. He feels like he could shake himself apart on the atomic level if he goes much further, and that being a fully coherent thought in a choppy ocean of sensation almost gets him to spare breath to laugh.

Vash can't do much more than wheeze in a stilted breath when wet heat overwhelms everything else, something about the fact that Wolfwood's humming almost feels like it answers his own pulsing resonance enhancing the electric rush of pleasure. Tempted as he might be (if he could speak) to insist it's too much, it's not. It's not. It's just more than he's used to, more than he's experienced before, more than he possibly could have expected.

He wants to-- He doesn't know. Warn? He can feel it, like a coiled spring slowly unwinding, releasing one kind of tension in favor winding up another; the bud is opening under the wet heat and the idea of more, and it's just a spiral after that. The more the petals fill and part, open, the more he feels, the more his body responds, the more -- slick? nectar? -- he releases, and maybe that's something that could use a verbal warning, but being a little past the point of caring most certainly counts as successfully not thinking. He's opening, blooming, more soft-slick-sensitive surfaces to benefit from the attention, and he barely even hears the shaky moan coming from his own panting mouth.

He's got to-- Got to-- Vash moves, tips forward a little more, pays absolutely no mind to which hand is trying to support against the mattress and which is reaching. Just to touch, not to force, not to drive, though he can't be sure how hard he might be failing. He tries, tries, not to let any of Wolfwood's hair get caught in his prosthetic, because the joints fit tightly, it's perfectly engineered, but he can't tell what's happening when he's trying not to let his fingers clench down too hard but his hips are completely and absolutely a lost cause as they jump forward without rhythm, and he'll just have to apologize later.

And still, still, through hazy thoughts and slightly hazy vision, he attempts to keep an eye on Wolfwood, because saying he can hold his breath and being more durable than a standard run-of-the-mill human being are certainly pieces of knowledge that Vash has, but making sure they're all very true is another thing. And maybe... maybe... watching is really like its very own drug. Coveted. Wanted in ways and with a strength that he can only admit to himself behind a wall of not thinking at all.

Laughter is good. It feels like a thread of tension has broken, and like the occasional too-tight rubber band Nicholas wears around his wrists, its snap is liberating. A touch of adrenaline mingles with relief, spiraling through his reckoning, and it really is for the better that he is both on his back and held captive between strong thighs. Otherwise, with the fluttery feeling that vaults between his stomach and his ribcage, he might well float away.

Laughter spools out into a purring groan, though he cannot manage the same pitch and timbre of Vash's preternatural resonance. It does not stop him trying, low enough to vibrate - although that might just be the creak of the cheap mattress underneath them as they adjust, unmistakable with the intimate gravity he no longer resists rocking into. Once, twice, press-grind, abdomen cording, stark in the skew of pale linen. His ribs expand against the pressure of squeezing knees, still perfectly capable of breathing, of moving. He could topple them over, could rearrange their orientation with ease, but he does not. Instead he grips Vash's waist, kneading his thumbs over the changing textures of unbroken flesh and smooth-silvery scar over rippled strength. Fearless. Wondering.

Because of course he has wondered.

He can lie expertly to himself, but he cannot lie about this.

They have lived more or less in one another's skin for years now, one way or another. On the road, on Angelina, on transports, in tiny cramped rooms, in shared beds, out in the wilderness. Close proximity has become a source of comfort as much as it can spur irritation, bickering that has become something of a second (third, fourth) language, a sort of unspoken affection along with every excuse for casual touch. Stitching wounds, cleaning up after gunfights, tending hurts… they have seen one another in the nude.

Wolfwood has looked, curious but never daring to pursue or presume until now. Until this overt welcome. Clear signs. Signs even he cannot ignore, cannot help but answer, because they have pulled on a thread of want he could only imagine on lonely nights and with a scrap of stolen clothing, pining away between the pillars of guilt and longing.

Everything outside of this space has ceased to exist.

There is only this.

Steady, swift, he drops his hands to assist peeling leather away, flicking buckles open and pulling zippers to free Vash from his ridiculous gunslinger's attire. The notion of quick-release like Punisher's bindings comes to mind, flickering in and out, stashed for later.

Maybe.

When he looks down, when he arrests his own urge to flee, Vash finds Wolfwood staring.

Lips parted, rounded, kiss-swollen, as he observes, as he breathes slow and deep, scenting like a beast, tongue curled against the backs of his incisors. Too pink, the seam, but sheened, promising, enough to inspire a dull throb as his hips tic-twitch against nothing. The color rides high on his cheeks, and his eyes are blown so dark that his pupils swallow his irises.

He, too, must swallow.

Meeting eye contact with Vash flares heat lightning down his spine, an aching jolt, a pang of hunger. His nostrils flare.

And then without hesitation, without warning, he hooks his forearms under, grips buttocks, and pulls, leveraging the slippery coverlet and the breadth of his own torso to yank Vash toward his chest. Further. Closer. Gaze held, he tilts his face left and right, brushing the stubble of his jaw and cheeks to inner thighs. Closer, closer. Nearer. Kisses follow, methodical against old wounds and unblemished skin, against his own impatience. Nicholas endeavors to make it quite clear just where his destination lies.

A nuzzle to the crease of thigh and pelvis, the arch of his nose wedged in tight, inhale-exhale, humid and hot.

"I can hold my breath a long time," he thrums, low and carnal and utterly enamored, pressing a kiss to the pad below Vash's navel with another deep, deep inhale. "Do what comes natural."

A graze of teeth - gentle, gentle - before he cranes his neck and tips his chin, mouth blooming open to fit fearlessly over Vash's sex. Tongue curling zig-zag, stroking from seam to bud and back with a rush of saliva, he echoes their earlier mauling in slow-motion, all with an abiding hum.

[zazaiafe2]

How to calm the critical mind and the ego to make shifting easier (and feel better mentally at the same time)

1) The basic mistake about the ego

Many think they need to "kill the ego" or "erase the mind" to shift.

This is wrong; you actually need to calm and soothe it .

The ego is a normal brain function, its job is to:

- Ensure your internal coherence

- Avoid taking radical risks

- Keep you in the known

-> Fighting it only makes it stronger.

2)Goal: Reduce the hyperactivity of the ego , not destroy it.

The idea is to:

- Calm its hypervigilance

- Offer it safe anchor points

- Shift attention rather than suppress it.

I invite you to listen to Wim Hoff's guided breathing It can help create a gentle dissociation that detaches the ego

3) Why does the ego block shifting?

Shifting often relies on:

- Altered states of consciousness (ASC)

- Mental fluidity

- The ability to accept direct experience

- The broadening of perception and identity

The critical ego analyzes everything:

"Is this working? Am I succeeding? Am I feeling enough?"

-> The more you analyze, the more you stay in "vigilance mode",

-> The less you shift, as you stay identified with your CR self, the one who analyzes and checks the CR environment.

4) Concrete strategies to calm the critical mind

1️⃣ Accept the idea that you can’t control everything.

- Co-creation with the environment, not absolute control over thoughts or emotions.

2️⃣ Take regular breaks.

- Stop the overpressure; you are not taking an exam.

3️⃣ Practice observation meditation.

- Observe your thoughts without judging them. They will pass.

4️⃣ Use micro-awakenings (WBTB), the hypnagogic state or the void stage (I have a blog about it).

-> Periods of low cortical activity = fertile ground.

You can listen to guided meditations to help you put distance between yourself and your thoughts.

5) Techniques to divert attention

5️⃣ Gentle and unforced visualization

- Play with mental images without trying to "visualize perfectly".

6️⃣ Internal roleplay.

- Sometimes imagining already being your "shifted self" relaxes the critical mind.

7️⃣ Controlled distractions

- Watch a gentle show, read a simple book before falling asleep.

You can also do all this while listening to brown or white noise and create a sensory-calming environment.

6) Emotional work: your relationship to your emotions matters more than the emotions themselves

✅ Sadness can be helpful (emotion with low agitation impact).

✅ Euphoria or excessive excitement can sometimes block you.

The important thing is not "positive or negative emotion" but:

-> The level of mental agitation associated with this emotion, and also your relationship to it.

The emotional state of those who shift on command at the time they shift

7) The paradoxical approach with the ego

Collaborate with your ego:

- Reassure it ("We won't lose anything.")

- Involve it ("Just observe, you have nothing to manage.")

- Soothe it ("Thank you for your job, now let's try something else.")

-> Rejecting the ego tends to strengthen it. Recognizing it relaxes it.

For highly anxious people with a lot of anxiety and thought I really advice this meditation or any subliminal that can help you.

8) Soft vigilance state vs hypervigilance

Seek fluid vigilance states:

- Relaxed wakefulness

- Hypnagogia

- Floating before sleep

- Light Modified States of Consciousness (MSC)

- Micro awakening

Avoid hyper-mental surveillance of "I MUST succeed now"

9) For "overthinkers" profiles

Highly analytical or anxious people can:

Provide their mind with simple but absorbing tasks (music, light visual patterns, calm mantras, coloring, reading, journaling).

Practice permissive self-hypnosis:

"I will just float and see what comes"

The key is to try to approach it with less pressure.

Personally, I like to create playlists related to my DR; it allows you to listen to them when you go to shift.

In summary:

- Observe without controlling

- Accept the current emotional state

- Create internal safety and inner acceptance.

- Divert attention from "over-control"

- Use natural windows of MSC (sleep, hypnagogia, nocturnal awakenings)

Bonus

We know that:

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is hyperactive when we overanalyze.

MSC (Modified States of Consciousness) allow to temporarily deactivate this network.

The more the mental ego decreases its critical activity, the more consciousness expansion states become accessible.

Hence the value of everything said here.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Life Cycle

Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of the life cycle

Normative Crisis — Age — Major Characteristics

Trust vs. Mistrust — 0 to 1 — Primary social interaction with mothering caretaker; oral concerns; trust or mistrust in life-sustaining care, including feeding.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt — 1 to 2 — Primary social interaction with parents; toilet training; beginnings of autonomous will.

Initiative vs. Guilt — 3 to 5 — Primary social interaction with nuclear family; beginnings of oedipal feelings; development of conscience to govern initiative.

Industry vs. Inferiority — 6 to puberty — Primary social interaction outside home among peers and teachers; school-age assessment of task ability.

Identity vs. Role Confusion — Adolescence — Primary social interaction with peers, culminating in heterosexual friendship; psychological moratorium from adult commitments; identity crisis; consolidation of resolutions of previous 4 stages into coherent sense of self.

Intimacy vs. Isolation — Early adulthood — Primary social interaction in intimate relationship (usually opposite sex); adult role commitments accepted, including commitment to another person.

Generativity vs. Stagnation — Middle adulthood — Primary social concern in establishing and guiding succeeding generation; productivity and creativity.

Ego Integrity vs. Despair — Late adulthood — Primary social concern is reflective: coming to terms with one’s place in the nearly complete life cycle, and with one’s relationships with others.

Erikson’s theory is called a psycho-self-reflexive, contextual process of finding and making meaning in the world.

It is not in conflict with scientific knowledge because, on the hermeneutic account, all psychological knowledge is concerned with this sort of understanding of our world (Verstehen), and not about explaining the universal laws of nature.

His theory charted changes in personality over the entire life cycle, rather than focusing on the early childhood years as critical to all later personality functioning.

Erikson proposed 8 stages of human development, each with its own normative crisis, by which he meant not a debilitating conflict, but rather a period of heightened vulnerability and potential.

He viewed human development as occurring in orderly stages, each with its own special characteristics and its own particular age relationship.

The stages always occur in a particular order and cannot be skipped.

His stages illustrate what Erikson termed the epigenetic principle.

Briefly stated, this principle proposes that critical elements of human personality have a ground plan from which they grow, similar to the physical growth principle by which the undifferentiated cells of embryos develop in orderly ways into organ systems. Thus, all human beings will face the normative crisis of trust versus mistrust in the period of infancy.

The resolution of this crisis leaves the infant with an abiding sense of either trust or mistrust that will become part of later personality functioning.

Each stage builds upon what has gone before and carries elements of itself into future stages.

Erikson’s contributions to psychology, particularly to the study of personality, can be divided into 4 major areas:

His emphasis on the importance of the entire life cycle in personality change

The psychosocial origins of personality

The centrality of self-identity in personality development

The importance of life histories for personality study

Source: Hopkins (1983, p. 74), adapted from Erikson (1968) ⚜ Psychology

[vivacissimx]

What do you think about Rhaena and Aegon the Uncrowned? I don't think he should have been named heir over Rhaena but also she never seemed resentful of him for it. Based on what Rhaena says later about being the eldest and the first dragonrider of all her siblings, it feels like she recognizes it was/is unfair that she's not named heir over Aegon/Jaehaerys. But also she clearly loved all her siblings a lot and was close to them before Maegor.

I think about them very much 🤡 I do not really agree that Aegon the Uncrowned was named heir over Rhaena in such concrete terms. Rhaena & Aegon were I believe extremely close (she brought him flying on her dragon an act she only otherwise did with her 'favorites') and from childhood expected to rule together. She was older than him, smarter, a dragonrider long before him, generous and protective yes but she certainly held sway over her siblings, as you say. Aenys summarily refused the idea of not marrying his two eldest children. He intended Rhaena to be half of what succeeded him. Between the siblings, she is the one who speaks frankly and authoritatively. It's Aegon the Uncrowned who proves indecisive without her to support him. In their relationship she was the dominant one so with the facts as they are, I can comfortably say that power-sharing between them was intended/expected to be equal.

The situation with Jaehaerys is different in several significant ways. One, I would actually present the idea that Rhaena is the one who crowned Jaehaerys King, when she stole Blackfyre from Maegor (briefly claiming her Kingship!) only to grant it to Jaehaerys. I believe the trauma from losing so much in such a short time (her father, Aegon, Melony Piper, her innocence/trust in others, and the shattering of her relationship with her daughters) combined with enduring Maegor's Court put Rhaena in a (perhaps temporary) state where she could not bear to fight for a throne which had cost her so much - so she charged Jaehaerys to be strong for their family when she could not be, and he accepted that. He fulfilled his promise but Jaehaerys' strength proved to come at Rhaena's expense in ways she had never anticipated. I doubt Rhaena could ever bring herself to hate Jaehaerys however the fact remains that he used Rhaena as the Other by which he legitimized his rule/Targaryen identity.

Rhaena: had multiple husbands, openly defied them, had only daughters, said daughters were claimed by multiple men (Aegon, Maegor & Jaehaerys) = socially understood as a sexually deviant woman

Jaehaerys: monogamous with a submissive yet treasured wife who was all a mother and Queen should be, drafted the Doctrine of Exceptionalism which replicated existing Westerosi racial ideas = socially understood as a sexually coherent man

Rhaena isn't just queer because she shares intimacy with women, which isn't even particularly abnormal a behavior for the time. She's queer because the threat of being labelled as Queer is how power structures enforce the very orthodoxy which Jaehaerys, to whom Rhaena was contrasted, was able to ingratiate himself within such that he became the mainstream ideal of Targaryen King. To have a status quo implies the Other, the Queer. Jaehaerys and Rhaena: two sides of the same coin (to use a metaphor the asoiaf fandom loves, 😂). I do believe Rhaena held some resentment towards Jaehaerys for the use, intentional or not, which he made of her but again I do not believe she ever hated him completely. He was the monster she helped create to counter the truer monster that was Maegor. And yes, it can also be said that Rhaena was the monster Jaehaerys helped create.

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

What makes you so interested in kuina?

well, i was a zoro girlie at the start. that he had this complex motivation and backstory that he kept entirely to himself fascinated me. he's loyal to luffy, fond of his crew, but this? this one thing is just for zoro. even after he shows he's willing to die for luffy (which implies luffy has become more important to zoro than his own dream), as far as we know he's yet to say kuina's name, let alone tell her story, to his crew.

his dream involves having his name shouted to the heavens so she can hear that he succeeded in fulfilling their shared goal, but he won't even whisper her name where anyone who matters could hear it. it's a fascinating contradiction.

a few more things below the cut.

second: the closest he's ever come to telling someone anything about kuina is, of course, tashigi. the zoro-tashigi dynamic is one of my favorites in op, but there's a reason i use the tag the ztk thing and not zotash: the ghost of kuina haunts that dynamic. even after the timeskip, when zoro's gotten over the resemblance enough to stop calling tashigi "copycat," tashigi brings up the conversation they had about kuina (though she's misunderstood zoro's meaning). it seems inescapable. it compels me terribly.

third: we know just enough about her to spark speculation. i love all the different takes ppl have on hypothetical adult kuina! she's a butch lesbian, she's no contact with her sexist dad, he's trans masc, she's convinced her dad to train a half-dozen feral little girls, she's trained a half-dozen feral little girls, she's mihawk's student, she's tashigi's rival, she's got a robot spine, she retaught herself how to walk, she faked her death to leave her sexist home, she took over the dojo at an infamously young age, she went to wano and got Big, etc. etc. mutually incompatible but all equally plausible. i love this kind of infinite possibility of character.

fourth: for all the diverse impossible futures we can imagine, her reality is cliche. a girl killed in a flashback to generate manpain and motivation in a main character. you can't even really call it fridging; that would imply she had any story purpose other than dying. but unlike so many other women dead in op backstories, the thing that kills her isn't a wicked man, or a cruel system—it's just an accident. fate, or bad luck, or random chance. nothing zoro can revenge himself on, except through atheism and defiant rejection of defeatist, futile thinking.

fifth: her "futility of wanting to be a female swordsman" angst is interesting. frustrating, not coherently written, but interesting all the same. it makes a common subtext of battle shonen—that girls are too weak to be fighters—text, by way of a young girl hearing others say it so often that she believes it. our dumb hero immediately protests that idea with the very shonen value of You Can Do Anything If You Just Try Hard Enough, and then she dies before we can find out which of them is right.

if we accept zoro's statement as true, but the swordfighting community in op is still 95% men, then we get a new, worse subtext: that girls are too weak-willed to be fighters. this especially seems to be the case for tashigi, who tries and tries and is frustrated by the sexism that surrounds & impedes her, which zoro just sees as her making excuses for her weakness—but isn't the case in wano, which is a much more blatantly, regressively sexist culture, yet produces an impressive number of capable swordswomen.

it makes me wonder how kuina would've actually fared, should she have survived to adulthood.

[haggishlyhagging]

Radical feminism remained the hegemonic tendency within the women's liberation movement until 1973 when cultural feminism began to cohere and challenge its dominance. After 1975, a year of internecine conflicts between radical and cultural feminists, cultural feminism eclipsed radical feminism as the dominant tendency within the women's liberation movement, and, as a consequence, liberal feminism became the recognized voice of the women's movement.

As the preceding chapters have shown, there were prefigurings of cultural feminism within radical feminism, especially by 1970. This nascent cultural feminism, which was sometimes termed ‘female cultural nationalism’ by its critics, was assailed by radical and left feminists alike. For instance, in the December 1970 issue of Everywoman, Ann Fury warned feminists against "retreating into a female culture":

“Like other oppressed [sic], we have our customs and language. But this culture, designed to create the illusion of autonomy, merely indicates fear. Withdraw into it and we take our slavery with us. . . . Furthermore when we retreat into our culture we cover our political tracks with moralism. We say our culture is somehow "better" than male culture. And we trace this supposed superiority to our innate nature, for if we attributed it to our powerlessness, we would have to agree to its dissolution the moment we seize control. . . . When we obtain power, we will take on the characteristics of the powerful. . . . We are not the Chosen people.”

Similarly, in a May 1970 article on the women's liberation movement in Britain, Juliet Mitchell and Rosalind Delmar contended:

“Re-valuations of feminine attributes accept the results of an exploitative situation by endorsing its concepts. The effects of oppression do not become the manifestations of liberation by changing values, or, for that matter, by changing oneself—but only by challenging the social structure that gives rise to those values in the first place.”

And in April 1970, the Bay Area paper It Ain't Me, Babe carried an editorial urging feminists to create a culture which would foster resistance rather than serve as a sanctuary from patriarchy:

“It is extremely oppressive for us to function in a culture where ideas are male oriented and definitions are male controlled. . . .Yet the creation of a woman's culture must in no way be separated from the political struggles of women for liberation. . . . Our culture cannot be the carving of an enclave in which we can bear the status quo more easily—rather it must crystallize the dreams that will strengthen our rebellion.”

But these warnings had little effect as the movement seemed to drift almost ineluctably toward cultural feminism. Cultural feminism seemed a solution to the movement's impasse—both its schisms and its lack of direction. Whereas parts of the radical feminist movement had become paralyzed by political purism, or what Robin Morgan called "failure vanguardism," cultural feminists promised that constructive changes could be achieved. To cultural feminists, alternative women's institutions represented, in Morgan's words, "concrete moves towards self determination and power" for women. Equally important, cultural feminism with its insistence upon women's essential sameness to each other and their fundamental difference from men seemed to many a way to unify a movement that by 1973 was highly schismatic. In fact, cultural feminism succeeded in large measure because it promised an end to the gay-straight split. Cultural feminism modified lesbian-feminism so that male values rather than men were vilified and female bonding rather than lesbianism was valorized, thus making it acceptable to heterosexual feminists.

Of course, by 1973 the women's movement was also facing a formidable backlash—one which may have been orchestrated by the male-dominated New Right, but was hardly lacking in female support. It is probably not coincidental that cultural feminism emerged at a time of backlash. Even if women's political, economic, and social gains were reversed, cultural feminism held out the possibility that women could build a culture, a space, uncontaminated by patriarchy. Morgan described women's art and spirituality as "the lifeblood for our survival" and maintained that “resilient cultures have kept oppressed groups alive even when economic analyses and revolutionary strategy fizzled.” There may even have been the hope that by invoking commonly held assumptions about women and men, anti-feminist women might experience a change of heart and join their ranks. The shift toward cultural feminism also suggests that feminists themselves were not immune to the growing conservatism of the period. Certainly, cultural feminism's demonization of the left seemed largely rooted in a rejection of the '60s radicalism out of which radical feminism evolved.

-Alice Echols, Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America: 1967-75

[54t411]

I Hate Jodi Picoult’s My Sister’s Keeper and think her saying the movie was trash adaptation was a stupid opinion despite her being the author.

Here’s why

| SPOILERS for My Sister’s Keeper |

Jodi Picoult, or as I will refer to her by her last name, is famous for her many novels she has published such as the subject for today: My Sister’s Keeper. A book about a young girl named Anna fighting for the right to her autonomy after being born to be her older sister’s , Kate, organ donor for her dire medical condition.

This story is based on the televised and sensational case of Marissa and Anissa Ayla who shocked the world when the Ayla parents conceived Marissa to save their 16-year old daughter with Leukemia. The story ends happily with both sisters succeeding in life as Marissa helped make her older sister cancer free.

Picoult saw that and decided to take the story and make it into a romance and idiotic novel we know as My Sister’s Keeper. The plot followed what the Ayla sisters went through but Picoult made it her own. She added a steamy oh so necessary romance between Anna’s lawyer, which Anna got when she decided she no longer wanted to give her body to be cut open for her sister, and her court appointed caretaker, which she got when her parents became inadequate to care for her while the court proceedings took place.

Not to mention, at the end of the novel, when Anna wins her case and is driving with her lawyer, they get into a car wreck. Anna becomes brain dead. She becomes fucking brain dead after all her hard work to gain back the right to her own body. What’s the first thing her parents do when they realize she is brain dead? They mourn her, of course, before USING her body that she fought so hard for them not to use and gave her organs to her sister Kate and other kids in need of organs.

Anna was born an organ donor and died being nothing more than an organ donor. The one thing she begged not to be.

Terrible. I wasted 2 weeks reading a book only to be disappointed. If I wanted a trashy book I would have picked Haunting Adeline. I didn’t enjoy the book and I hated how in the end Kate got better and the stupid lawyer and court appointed caretaker got together. What was the point of the whole book?? That fighting for your rights is useless because when you die people will go against everything you fought for??

What is this?? The Hunger Games??

I finished the book and decided with all my brain cells that remained to watch the movie adaptation with Alex Baldwin.

I won’t lie. I enjoyed the movie. In where the book failed to catch my appeal, the movie created something more with it. In the end of the movie, Kate dies but Anna wins rights for her body. But Kate isn’t mad, she wanted Anna to be her own person and Kate mentioned how she wanted to die because she was in constant pain. It was a beautiful movie about grieving and the acceptance of death.

It was everything the book failed to be. It showed what grief and the beauty of life looks like in a movie form.

Yet Picoult complained and said the movie went away from the book. Horrible, she called it. Well Picoult, if I wrote a shitty novel and saw how the adaption was much better- I’d be mad too.

Picoult failed to understand how the movie helped resonate with audiences and capture their emotions into a coherent narrative as where hers failed.

She tried to be too many things and failed at even being one. I stay up at night hating how she failed at understanding such a simple concept. People such as this shouldn’t be authors. Yet I will commend the fact her stupid book has drove me insane for years now.

Good fucking job, Jodi. You wrote a shitty book and now I’m here saying it’s shit. An author’s dream because all commentary is free promo for your book.

Anyhow, check mate, read better books people. There are more things to literature than half baked romances.

- anon 🦖

[lazareneblessing]

3 and 8 for Nat, 7 for Malcolm!

THANK YOU SO MUCHHHH MWAH MWAH SMOOCH

3. What is their Ambition? How are they planning on achieving that goal?

kay so by the virtue of being a SPC, nat doesn't have a clear cut ambition always updated on their sheet. but currently what's at the forefront of their mind is finding and capturing gaspard, a tzimisce who sired their thinblood bestie zoë. and also did a bunch of other stuff. they've got long-standing beef. but pretty soon after we started our chronicle (shadows of berlin) nat tried killing him again and thought they succeeded but couldn't really confirm the death cuz they made a promise to keep one of the PCs on the scene (@deenomilk's zasha <3) safe as they interrogated him about some plot stuff. but alas it seems like gaspard somehow got rescued, and zoë is looking into different ways to become human again. the whole "kill your sire and you will get your mortality back" thing came up in her research. and nat kinda fucked her over by trying to murder him in secret in the first place so they want to make up for it by delievering him staked and ready to kill for her like a cat bringing a wounded rat as a thropy to its owner. sorry if this is a lot and makes barely any sense but if i were to go in deep about this whole plotline we would be here forever LOL . but im willing to share in a separate post maybe if anyones interested.

8. What annoys them the most about other vampires? How about specific clans or sects (specify)?

i think a major point of annoynance for nat when it comes to other vampires is when they behave like they're better than they are when it comes to moral matters. nat's doing pretty good humanity-wise at this point in our game, but a lot of it comes from the radical acceptance of who they are. which is. well, a parasitic monster. and they don't really shy away from it, or speaking of their past which includes giovanni shenenigans, sabbat shenenigans (war crimes) or just their general being a menace towards everyone shenenigans. so they don't like it when other cainites act all high and mighty and better than the others for whatever the reasons may be. excessive pride in one's perceived goodness irks them.

sect-wise, they find camarilla annoying for the reasons stated above pretty much, and also for their hypocrisy. like, are they all that better than the sabbat? nat has their doubts. they left the sabbat for very interpersonal reasons and also kinda blinded by rage, but when they were a part of it they didn't enjoy the lack of coherent and reasonable planning. didn't mind the bloodshed at all, just how wasteful it usually was.

and if we are speaking of specific clans... they disdain most of the main clan giovanni, which goes beyond typical annoyance LMAO. and then the tremere annoy them with their occult knowledge elitism and gatekeeping.

7. What are some of the most evil and fucked up things they've done? Was it a big deal for them?

ouhhhhhh so. important thing about malcolm is that he's a ghoul and he became a ghoul under some very specific circumstances and his brain was pretty much broken by his domitor via a mixture of dominate and the blood bond. like dude had all of his personhood pretty much taken away from him, and he was working for one of the giovanni running a very hands-on mafia operations. so as far as consciously making choices to do evil and fucked up things, nahhh he's clear. some questionable stuff maybe but there were lines he wasn't and/or isn't willing to cross as of now. but under his first domitor everything was on the table cuz he was like a shell of a person pretty much driven entirely by the domitor's orders. so he was doing a lot of typical mafia violence shit, beating people up for extortion/threatening/whatever purposes, killing whoever his domitor wanted disposed of (including malcolm's own boyfriend, rip), doing hit and runs with a death toll, committing arson, terrorism, running whole families over with his car. like there is a lot and he didn't remember most of it in the first place cuz he was getting his memories ereased, and what he did remember his brain repressed to protect itself. he feels Terrible about it, cause even though he didn't do those things out of his own free will, they still happened and theres no way he can make up for any of it. but he is slowly coming to terms with all of that although the guilt Will haunt him forever!

[bichaels]

so, what's "not my shadow"?

ive been talking about it on my blog (and sideblog @notmyshadow) for a while now, but i recognize that i havent even shared the gist of it on tumblr in any coherent manner.

its a dtl fic ive been simmering for a while. it deals a lot with facing the present after being fixated in the past (especially trying to let that past go), grieving and regretting what's alive, beholding and glorifying what's dead, - that's a few themes, im sure i'll subconsciously incorporate more as i go.

basically, circi survives the giant scribble monster's attack. she finds out her attempt to bring wilfre back succeeded, but it was shortlived because of his defeat in the wasteland. her finding out that wilfre is dead with no further instructions from him (like in tncwii) fills her with intense and nearly-fatal grief. she uses this emotion (via shadow, which isnt banished to the human realm) to concentrate itself into... wilfre.

but its not wilfre. its circi's perception of wilfre, the wilfre that she's idolized and loved for years.

eventually she must face the fact that the real wilfre is alive and changed, alive and fundamentally not the raposa she knew due to the shadow's negative influence on him.

how will she cope with her conflicting views - grieve the past forever or accept the present?

[ewaneneollav]

quotes

our car broke down in the following eight places, & each place had a nice new friend, a sunny ditch, a kooky animal, & a romantic feeling

sham dustbathing raises an interesting question in animal behaviour, motivation & welfare. hens that have been reared in captivity without ever having encountered litter will perform sham dustbathing. therefore, it can be questioned how these birds, which have never had the possibility to dustbathe in a functional substrate, perceive sham dustbathing; do they yearn for something that they have never had or known (i.e. litter), or are they content to sham dustbathe?

a connecting thread, an inner rule, a perspective, a discourse. with cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. cities, like dreams, are made of desires & fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, & everything conceals something else

the point at which that particular dynamism found its purest incarnation in matter, the point at which it was freest from interference from other modes & rose to its highest degree of intensity. that never lasts more than a flash, because the world rarely leaves room for uncommon intensity, being in large measure an entropic trashbin of outworn modes that refuse to die

thus it is that the lovers conspire to protect each other from the lethal destiny of their passion, either succeeding in this, & relapsing into the wretched sanity of mutual affection, or compacting their fever to new scratch-patches of intensity

she was this isolated person, incarcerated for all those years, & she emerged & lived in a more reasonable world for a while, & responded to this world, & then the door was shut & she withdrew again & her soul was sick

i was left behind with the immensity of existing things […] a river, suffering because reflections of clouds & trees are not clouds & trees

somewhere else there was a city of real presence, of real trees & voices & friendship & love

Calvin reached over & took off her glasses. then he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket & wiped her tears. this gesture of tenderness undid her completely, & she put her head down on her knees & sobbed

there is no need for you to leave the house. stay at your table & listen. don’t even listen, just wait. don’t even wait, be completely quiet & alone. the world will offer itself to you to be unmasked; it can’t do otherwise; in raptures it will writhe before you

since it already does not pretend to bring to bear a definitively coherent & worked-out system, it would be even less possible for it to present itself for what it is in such a perfectly rigorous manner that stupidity & bad faith would be forbidden among everyone who had anything to do with it, & in such a way that a universal lesson would be imposed upon everyone. such an idealist pretension can only support itself through a dogmatism that is always already doomed to defeat, & dogmatism is always already the inaugural defeat of such thought

i do not accept evil. man is perfect. the soul does not fall. progress exists. ... up till now, misfortune has been described in order to inspire terror & pity. i will describe happiness in order to inspire their contraries. ... as long as my friends do not die, i will not speak of death

it's just really awesome to be in each other's company because it feels so... it feels so "pure", like we are the fox & the hound, or two five-year-old children

you know when someone's telling a joke but they keep stopping because they're laughing too hard & then you start laughing even though you don't know what for or why?

there is something uniquely convincing about the perceptions that occur to you when you are in love. they seem truer than other perceptions, & more truly your own, won from reality at personal cost. greatest certainty is felt about the beloved as necessary complement to you. your powers of imagination connive at this vision, calling up possibilities from beyond the actual. all at once a self never known before, which now strikes you as the true one, is coming into focus. a gust of godlikeness may pass through you & for an instant a great many things look knowable, possible & present. then the edge asserts itself. you are not a god. you are not that enlarged self. indeed, you are not even a whole self, as you now see

there is no escape. you can't be a vagabond & an artist & still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man. you want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover. you say yes to the sunlight & pure fantasies, so you have to say yes to the filth & the nausea. everything is within you, gold & mud, happiness & pain, the laughter of childhood & the apprehension of death. say yes to everything, shirk nothing. don't try to lie to yourself. you are not a solid citizen. you are not a Greek. you are not harmonious, or the master of yourself. you are a bird in the storm. let it storm! let it drive you! how much have you lied! a thousand times, even in your poems & books, you have played the harmonious man, the wise man, the happy, the enlightened man. in the same way, men attacking in war have played heroes, while their bowels twitched. my God, what a poor ape, what a fencer in the mirror man is- particularly the artist- particularly myself!

Valdrada’s inhabitants know that each of their actions is, at once, that action & its mirror-image, which possesses the special dignity of images, & this awareness prevents them from forgetfulness. even when lovers twist their naked bodies, skin against skin, seeking the position that will give one the most pleasure in the other, even when murderers plunge the knife into the black veins of the neck & more clotted blood pours out the more they press the blade that slips between the tendons, it is not so much their copulating or murdering that matters as the copulating or murdering of the images, limpid & cold in the mirror. at times the mirror increases a thing’s value, at times denies it. not everything that seems valuable above the mirror maintains its force when mirrored. the twin cities are not equal, because nothing that exists or happens in Valdrada is symmetrical: every face & gesture is answered, from the mirror, by a face & gesture inverted, point by point. the two Valdradas live for each other, their eyes interlocked; but there is no love between them

you who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, i don't even know what songs would please you. i have given up trying to recognize you in the surging wave of the next moment. all the immense images in me - the far-off, deeply felt landscape, cities, towers, & bridges, & un-suspected turns in the path, & those powerful lands that were once pulsing with the life of the gods - all rise within me to mean you, who forever elude me

you, Beloved, who are all the gardens i have ever gazed at, longing. an open window in a country house - & you almost stepped out, pensive, to meet me. streets that i chanced upon, - you had just walked down them & vanished. & sometimes, the mirrors were still dizzy with your presence &, startled, gave back my too-sudden image. who knows? perhaps the same bird echoed through both of us yesterday, separate, in the evening...

the impulse to water down feelings & consequently declare oneself "mature" is a deadening, cheapening, & unethical approach to life. rationality, self-knowledge, & clarity of mind are in no sense antithetical to intensity. & resisting the latter is certainly not a good path to any of the former

love isn't some kind of passive entertainment or fleeting hunger; love involves serious ontological reconfigurations. or at least there's a thing that happens, when you grow to know a person, when that person is smart, creative, & kind, when they can surprise you, see the same things you can see, & behave with either such compassion or regularity that you can relax your shields around them, where they become qualitatively more real to you. almost as real as yourself. where your mirror neurons jiggle & dance in tune with them, a ghost of them moving alongside you at all times. loving someone remakes yourself. but most importantly, even if that ghost fades to a silent unnoticed echo, the impression left by the experience reshapes your ethical reality. you are not alone. tangibly. provably. there are other minds. in a way impossible to ascertain merely kicking balls with the shrieking automatons on the playground or banging one in a bathroom or being overcome with the novelty of a new automaton with handsome hydraulics. & this implies an absolute ethical obligation.

the difficulties love harbors don’t stem from the existence of an enemy who has been identified. they are internal to the process: the creative play of difference. selfishness, not any rival, is love’s enemy. one could say: my love’s main enemy, the one i must defeat, is not the other, it is myself, the “myself” that prefers identity to difference, that prefers to impose its world against the world re-constructed through the filter of difference

the inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. there are two ways to escape suffering it. the first is easy for many: accept the inferno & become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. the second is risky & demands constant vigilance & apprehension: seek & learn to recognize who & what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space

& this i dreamt, & this i dream, & some time this i will dream again, & all will be repeated, all be re-embodied. you will dream everything i have seen in dream

to one side from ourselves, to one side from the world, wave follows wave to break on the shore, on each wave is a star, a person, a bird. dreams, reality, death - on wave after wave

no need for a date; i was, i am, & i will be. life is a wonder of wonders, & to wonder i dedicate myself, on my knees, like an orphan, alone, among mirrors, fenced in by reflections. cities & seas, iridescent, intensified.

a mother in tears takes a child on her lap

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"it has come into my mind--i have been thinking--well you see you have not married in the six years since you went to live in the city. it would be strange & a little amusing if you are like myself, if you cannot marry or come close to any other person," he was saying

again he spoke of the life he led in his house. "i sometimes sit in my house all day, even when the weather is fine outside," he said. "you have no doubt seen me sitting there. sometimes i forget to eat. i read books all day, striving to forget myself & then night comes & i cannot sleep

"if i could write or paint or make music, if i cared at all about expressing what goes on in my mind it would be different. however, i would not write as others do. i would have but little to say about what people do. what do they do? in what way does it matter? well you see they build cities such as you live in & towns like Willow Springs, they have built this railroad track on which we are walking, they marry & raise children, commit murders, steal, do kindly acts. what does it matter? you see we are walking here in the hot sun. in five minutes more we will be in town & you will go to your house & i to mine. you will eat supper with your father & mother. then your father will go up town & you & your mother will sit together on the front porch. there will be little said. your mother will speak of her intention to can fruit. then your father will come home & you will all go to bed. your father will pump a pail of water at the pump by the kitchen door. he will carry it indoors & put it on a box by the kitchen sink. a little of the water will be spilled. it will make a soft little slap on the kitchen floor--"

"ha!"

Melville Stoner turned & looked sharply at Rosalind who had grown a little pale. her mind raced madly, like an engine out of control. there was a kind of power in Melville Stoner that frightened her. by the recital of a few commonplace facts he had suddenly invaded her secret places. it was almost as though he had come into the bedroom in her father's house where she lay thinking. he had in fact got into her bed. he laughed again, an unmirthful laugh. "i'll tell you what, we know little enough here in America, either in the towns or in the cities," he said rapidly. "we are all on the rush. we are all for action. i sit still & think. if i wanted to write i'd do something. i'd tell what everyone thought. it would startle people, frighten them a little, eh? i would tell you what you have been thinking this afternoon while you walked here on this railroad track with me. i would tell you what your mother has been thinking at the same time & what she would like to say to you"

Rosalind's face had grown chalky white & her hands trembled. they got off the railroad tracks & into the streets of Willow Springs. a change came over Melville Stoner. of a sudden he seemed just a man of forty, a little embarrassed by the presence of the younger woman, a little hesitant. "i'm going to the hotel now & i must leave you here," he said. his feet made a shuffling sound on the sidewalk. "i intended to tell you why you found me lying out there with my face buried in the grass," he said. a new quality had come into his voice. it was the voice of the boy who had called to Rosalind out of the body of the man as they walked & talked on the tracks. "sometimes i can't stand my life here," he said almost fiercely & waved his long arms about. "i'm alone too much. i grow to hate myself. i have to run out of town"

the man did not look at Rosalind but at the ground. his big feet continued shuffling nervously about. "once in the winter time i thought i was going insane," he said. "i happened to remember an orchard, five miles from town where i had walked one day in the late fall when the pears were ripe. a notion came into my head. it was bitter cold but i walked the five miles & went into the orchard. the ground was frozen & covered with snow but i brushed the snow aside. i pushed my face into the grass. in the fall when i had walked there the ground was covered with ripe pears. a fragrance arose from them. they were covered with bees that crawled over them, drunk, filled with a kind of ecstacy. i had remembered the fragrance. that's why i went there & put my face into the frozen grass. the bees were in an ecstasy of life & i had missed life. i have always missed life. it always goes away from me. i always imagined people walking away. in the spring this year i walked on the railroad track out to the bridge over Willow Creek. violets grew in the grass. at that time i hardly noticed them but today i remembered. the violets were like the people who walk away from me. a mad desire to run after them had taken possession of me. i felt like a bird flying through space. a conviction that something had escaped me & that i must pursue it had taken possession of me"

Melville Stoner stopped talking. his face also had grown white & his hands also trembled. Rosalind had an almost irresistible desire to put out her hand & touch his hand. she wanted to shout, crying-- "I am here. I am not dead. I am alive." instead she stood in silence, staring at him, as the widow who owned the high flying hens had stared. Melville Stoner struggled to recover from the ecstasy into which he had been thrown by his own words. he bowed & smiled. "i hope you are in the habit of walking on railroad tracks," he said. "i shall in the future know what to do with my time. when you come to town i shall camp on the railroad tracks. no doubt, like the violets, you have left your fragrance out there." Rosalind looked at him. he was laughing at her as he had laughed when he talked to the widow standing at his gate. she did not mind. when he had left her she went slowly through the streets. the phrase that had come into her mind as they walked on the tracks came back & she said it over & over. "& God spoke to me out of a burning bush." she kept repeating the phrase until she got back into the Wescott house

[spidermanifested]

this is not my usual type of post but ive been rotating some thoughts and i guess my blogs as good a place as any to get them organized. okay so this is basically my take on the entire discourse surrounding the "feminine (presumed cis lets be honest) women are uniquely oppressed for being feminine/making female characters quote unquote Less Feminine is antifeminist" thing. which i keep seeing come up. on this internet of ours

context being im a trans guy. grew up largely seen by others as female, probably, sort of. was about as far from a cishet womans feminine as you can imagine. not in a cool tomboy way. not in a way that society had a box for. and thats the thing, is that when you fail at gender, whether youre conscious of it or not, theres this extremely profound loneliness that comes with it. part of it was the autism but i made like 6 real-life friends total from ages 4 to 18 and there were no examples of anyone with an even remotely adjacent experience i could find in the media or irl. anytime a female character skirted a little too close to actual masculinity in a tv show or movie shed get that makeover eventually. i was bullied by both boys and girls but the girls who bullied me were uniformly very feminine.

and so i see people talking about how hard feminine women and girls have it, how the world hates them for being beautiful, and on the one hand its like okay, Misogyny Exists. thats not really refutable thats just the reality of it. society hates women. and as for eurocentric femininity specifically i understand its a hard tightrope to walk!!! you have to put on all these masks BUT make them seem natural, youre forced into these narrow boxes of acceptable behavior and appearance and desires, and if you under- or over-shoot then people get reminded the whole thing is a farce and get mad (often violently!) at YOU for it

........but then my thing is, that on one side of the tightrope, the "overperforming eurocentric femininity" side, the tradwife or girlboss or blonde bimbo side, theres an entire history of structural trope-crafting to break your fall, right. like its a shitty box but its the box society WANTS you to be in. they look at you and go "yep thats a woman. we dont like those but that sure is one". there are known social niches to carve out. theres a script.

on the unfeminine side theres just. nothing. its stone cold concrete down there. and apparently twitter would have you believe its actually that the "more masculine" somebody presumed female appears the more society respects them but that to me is the wildest and most nonsense take on the planet because if people see you as a woman or girl who has not taken the needed steps to justify your place as one of those things you might as well be an alien, or even a monster. theres no script at all. and i feel like this is one of the major experiences that trans and gnc people of every gender share-- god knows trans women get the brunt of the vitriol-- and from my knowledge a lot of nonwhite people too, and also fat and disabled people, like. there are SO many things that affect your ability to achieve even a fraction of success at this aspirational femininity.

ive had to see people for real make the argument that princess peach making an angry face is masculine. i think the most masculine woman anyone on twitter can imagine right now is like a businesswoman in a form-fitting pantsuit and light mascara. maybe the struggle of succeeding at femininity under patriarchy deserves exploration, ive seen plenty of coherent and reasonable points, its not without worth as a discussion. but i do not trust the general public with the topic without immediately sliding into bog standard gender policing and transphobia, and so in closing, when the mainstream feminist take on the whole thing seems to be "the more you perform the femininity expected of you the worse you have it", i get the sensation that nobody told me it was opposite day and im about to feel real silly

[nrrrdgrrrl2002]

Haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet but I think I might bring back this “Game Abby au” idea I had a while back,

It’s nothin too crazy

Just a “what if Abby was a character in the games?” And an opportunity to slightly rewrite the fnaf games into something I find more coherent and interesting

So here’s a lil Abby timeline and some fun facts about her in my au!

1983/FNAF 4- Abby is only a few months old by the time the events of this game happens.

William and mrs Afton are currently starting to go through a divorce so mrs Afton currently has Elizabeth and Abby with her while Michael and crying child are staying with William.

Imma say Michael is 12 and Elizabeth and crying child are 8 (I’m making them twins here) at this point

So I’d probably have Elizabeth be 10-11 when she gets scooped a couple years later

(Skipping fnaf 2 since it ain’t relevant here)

1990/FNAF 1-so Abby is now 7 and Michael is 19. Mrs Afton ended up “passing away” so Mike took Abby in as soon as he turned 18 to keep her away from William,

Succeeding in doing so since William was under investigation (but never arrested unfortunately)

So he takes the pizzeria job cause it was the only place in their small town that would take him, everyone else not trusting him after everything that’s happened with the Afton family.

Just like the movie he takes Abby with her.

After five nights of trying to survive, Abby ends up developing a bond with the animatronics, so they mellow out with the whole trying to kill mike thing,

Allowing Abby and mike the opportunity to find out some odd things about these seemingly living animatronics.

They eventually figure out the animatronics are possessed by the kids who went missing years ago, causing mike to become more suspicious of his father than ever.

Abby becomes close friends with the animatronics for about 3 years. Until the pizzeria needs to be closed down for good.

Mike manages to find out that the animatronics were dismantled for some reason and now the kid’s spirits have nothing to possess but are still unable to move on.

This prompts him and Abby to start really looking into what happened to these kids to help them move on, the kids haunting Abby to keep themselves tethered to this realm until they can properly move on.

Giving mike more motive to help them so Abby won’t be haunted for the rest of her life and possibly even deemed insane by others.

1995/Sister Location- Abby is now 12 and Michael is 24.

Abby is still being haunted by the missing kids and mikes still looking into what happened.

He ends up finding an old note from his dad, who’s been missing for two years, telling him that if anything happens to him, to go to the circus babys rental bunker

Michael goes by himself this time, seeing Abby as old enough to be able to be left alone, so she doesn’t get much to do.

That is, until after everything in sister location happens.

Instead of ennard leaving of their own accord due to mikes body becoming too rotten, Abby realizes after a few days of living with possessed mike that this isn’t quite Michael.

So, with the missing kids help, she manages to force ennard out of Michael, even getting herself pretty badly hurt from this due to ennard trying to take her body next.

After some recovery time in the hospital, she manages to reunite with a corpse Michael.

Michael is not doing well at all with the whole being turned into a zombie thing. Abby accepts it and tries to help him through it, but it’s a lot for both of them and strains their relationship.

They even lose contact with each other when Abby moves out for college, Michael thinking she’ll have a better chance to live her life if he’s not in it.

This also pretty much postponed the investigation into what happened to the missing kids. The ghost kids and Abby have gotten very used to each other so they’re not pushing to find a way for the ghost kids to move on.

Mikes still worried about it since it constantly looks like Abby’s talking to herself, but he still thinks it’s better than him staying with her to help the ghost kids

2013/FNAF 3- ok so Williams only locked away for 20 years instead of 30 in this. This is when i really start f••king with the timeline.

So Abby has been trying to live her life, even with the whole ghost kids haunting thing. But she’s still looking into what happened to them to try to find their killer (who they don’t know the identity of)

Then fazbear frights opens, which the ghost kids have a strong feeling could be the solution to their problem.

So Abby takes a night guard job there and finally gets to meet her father, who she didn’t get to interact with much as a kid

She doesn’t recognize him, but he recognizes her due to her having his eyes.

So he tries to lure “his little princess” out of her office and convince her to help him, scaring the hell outta her in the process.

Abby and the ghost kids manage to figure out that this isn’t just their killer, but Abby’s father,

Leaving Abby with the difficult decision of killing her father, who she holds in high regards since she didn’t know him that well, to save her best friends of over 20 years.

The two have a pretty brutal brawl, Abby needing to be saved by the puppet, who’s been seeking out William for years.

Abby lights the place on fire and barely manages to escape in time.

The puppet takes the ghost kids to guide them to the other side, their souls now finally able to rest

Abby is sad to see her friends go, but grateful that their no longer in pain, now allowing her the chance to fully move on as well

Until…

2014/Pizzeria Sim- William managed to survive but Henry, now out of prison due to being blamed for Williams crimes, sets out to take em out once and for all.

Gaining the aid of Michael Afton, who’s been hiding away from the world for decades, but also aiding a detective and former employee of Freddy fazbears, Jeremy Fitzgerald, with strange cases relating to Freddy fazbears

Things go pretty much the same way they do as canon,

But ending with Jeremy finding Abby and trying to get her and him to the pizzeria after Jeremy discovers Henry’s plan and realizes michael is in danger,

Not knowing that Henry plans to trap michael there as well to burn away everything

But they get there too late and the place is already burning down, leaving michael dead and Abby grieving.

Abby ends up getting ownership of the fazbear brand due to literally everyone else who could get it being dead

And instead of abandoning it, she decides she wants to use the opportunity to make something good out of this brand of tragedy

Leading into

(Also skipping help wanted)

2023/Security Breach- Abby is the ceo of fazbear entertainment and trying to run the place as well as she can at 40 years old.

Still mourning her brothers loss but otherwise happy with her life

What she doesn’t know but will get to discover is that michael is still around

Now possessing a certain very friendly, very odd, orange bear robot…

Now for fun facts about Abby!

•she was a grunge kid in her tweens-teens

•she met a girl named Jessica in college who eventually became her wife

•she didn’t get to see her father much due to her mom and then her brother wanting distance from him

•her father, when he did see her, referred to her as “his little princess” after a children’s book he’d read to her called “princess quest��

•she didn’t get to know crying child (or Evan in this) until she met him at Freddy fazbears possessing golden Freddy

•she didn’t get to meet Elizabeth until her soul briefly pleaded to her for help as she was fighting ennard. To this day, she’s still unsure if Elizabeth was simply tricking her or genuinely needed her help and it still bothers her.

That’s about all I got for now folks!

[griffincloud]

desire or nightmare for peachleaf :3

Sorry for not getting to this sooner ^^", I was busy and now I'm sick so I may not be super coherent in my rambling

So this will require a "brief" worldbuilding synopsis since Peachleaf is very much intertwined with the non-WC canon part of this WCOC story. But basically, there are basically 3 levels/tiers of existing (best wording I got): you're either alive, in limbo (sort of like The Dark Forest but not really? You don't go there if you're evil; described as "having a paw between being alive and dead" by Tuftbee), and fully dead/StarClan. Most cats go from living straight to being a StarClan cat upon dying, but if you for some reason have some form of "unfinished business" or cannot accept your death, you are now stuck in limbo. A spirit cannot leave this state once stuck there and this limbo state isn't good for the "health" of the spirit. The spirit will slowly become sick or "corrupted" by their feelings of hate and turmoil over their death; if enough time passes, the spirit will fully "corrupt" and become unrecognizable from their former selves. The speed at which this happens relies on how well the spirit keeps themselves at peace, but no spirit is immune from corrupting as spirits are naturally emotional creatures

Corrupted spirits are known to attack and kill the living. But the presence of non-corrupted spirits isn't good either; extended exposure to one unknowingly causes sickness and unexplained stress usually manifesting as anxiety or paranoia

This is where Shepherds come in. Shepherds are unique in the sense that they can see spirits (as cats cannot see spirits with the exception of corrupted spirits when they're about to be attacked by them/when the spirit shows themselves to the cat first) and are gifted the power to help spirits pass on and purify the corrupted spirits. Each Shepherd is born from the same family, descended from the first Shepherd's littermates as Floodfog never had kits of her own. When one Shepherd dies, the eldest kit of the next litter born after they pass will become the next one. Peachleaf is the 11th Shepherd, succeeding Icefern

Now, onto the actual questions...

Desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

To have a voice in the clans (whether that be by taking up a higher-ranking role or otherwise). This isn't a bad desire at all, but she still tries to word this to herself as just wanting to serve the clans and make them better in an attempt to be humble/coy. She doesn't like to draw much attention to herself paradoxically

She chooses to be a Medic since she genuinely wants to help other cats and that is something she feels strongly about, but being a well-respected member of her society is a plus to her. She tries to work hard and aid her leader and clanmates any way she can to earn or keep their respect, even if they already respect her because she's their family (by blood or not)

Nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

Peachleaf has nightmares about seeing her friends, family, and clanmates become corrupted spirits because that means she could not help them not only in life as a Medic but also not in death as a Shepherd. As for how she copes with the idea, I can't particularly go into that too much as that would be leaning into spoiler territory (which I would love to talk about with just mutuals if anyone is curious but it's maybe not the best idea to go into that too much publicly if I wanna turn this into a comic one day) but let's just say, she copes with it in ways that progress the plot. But she largely keeps these fears to herself as she feels it is her burden to bear (and has been sworn to secrecy by Tuftbee, her great-grandmother and the 8th Shepherd as she feels that's what you're supposed to do) but she does console in a select few cats about her duties and fear of failing those duties such as Sterletcurl, Ripplingbreeze, Sizzlingpond, Xanthiawing, and of course Tuftbee

Prompts List

[felixaortiz]

The message behind my work is self acceptance and how I accept both sides of my character that being the good and the bad.

I chose the mask because as of lately I’ve shown a particular interest in theatre arts so I thought using the masks was a clever way to not only express my interests, but also represent the different sides of my personality. The masks sort of act like the metaphorical devil and angel on my shoulders.

As you can tell from my drawing, I chose a pose that includes both arms crossing each other to cover my chest. I like to see that pose as me being protected from outside influences, doing so allows me to stay who I am. As each hand is put on each shoulder it’s protecting a different side of myself. My right hand is protecting the angel, my inner child or innocence; the left hand is protecting the devil, the general or the part of me that’s hard on myself. By keeping both hands on my shoulders it brings balance and prevents one side from being more dominant than the other. Secondly,said pose is often used to convey shyness, but in this case I’m using at to convey reassurance. The pose is a statement that being “This is who I am and no matter how embarrassing of a situation I’m in, or how uncomfortable I feel, I will continue being Felix the next day”. Which is part of why I decided to draw myself shirtless.

Honestly, I’m actually quite proud of what I was able to accomplish. I had high doubts that I wasn’t gonna be able to finish, or even worse the level of skill that I’m at in drawing wouldn’t be good enough to get good grade on the assignment. Also, I was originally planning to go even more deeper with theme and narrative behind my painting. I then realized that what I had originally planned would be to difficult for viewers to understand so I changed it. Either way I think I succeeded in using simplicity to convey a clear and coherent message.

Art is more than just about detail it’s also about how well you can convey a message.